


Moon gods

by Kuriake



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Experimental Style, F/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 07:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuriake/pseuds/Kuriake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four moments before, during and after a full moon night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moon gods

_In the Ogdoad or eight-fold belief system,_ Willow once read, _Thoth is the Egyptian deification of the moon, his ibis beak closely resembling the crescent planet. His feminine counterpart—first said to be his daughter, later his wife—is Seshat, goddess of wisdom, knowledge and writing. After her pairing with Thoth, Seshat's stylized papyrus became shown surmounted by a crescent moon._

Though the stoic veil reveals nothing, she can tell. It is a feeling: the boy beside her is fidgety, nervous, the accumulating tension beneath his skin humming in resonance to hers. Ants separating tissue crawling their way between muscle and skin, electricity raking the inside of veins – and realizes it must be a hundred times worse for him.

If it weren't for the absolute necessity for them to be here, now, in this college on this day during this afternoon, he ( _they_ ) wouldn't be here, but rather far away – from these halls, from the world, basking in the last gold of sunlight and each other. Making love on these days meant doing so during daylight, making it all the more secluded and ethereal, safely tucked away from the hoi-polloi of crazy college life, hidden between legs and arms and yellow-lighted bedroom walls. 

Her heart's starting to beat rhythms in her throat, buzzing in her ears, tension drowning out sound, sure he can hear. He could be here, they calculated, but it would be close. 

“People are opposed to change,” professor Walsh lectures. “It is our very human nature to be so.”

The--nervous--tap of a pen; she silently reaches over and closes her hand over his and, for a first in her life, prays for the bell to ring soon.

***

_In Norse mythology, Máni is the god of the moon and a son of the giant Mundilfari and his wife Glaur. Máni rides across the night sky in a chariot, pulling the moon behind him every night while he is pursued by the wolf Hati (whose name means hate), just as the wolf Sköll (meaning repulsion) chases his sister the Sun during the day. It is foretold that the wolves will succeed in their hunt and swallow the heavenly bodies at Ragnarök, after which their father, the monstrous wolf Fenrir, will break free from his bonds and slay the great god Odin._

Half an hour to get out. Half an hour to get out of the class, (collect paperwork from Riley,) out of the building, (say hi to a Dingoes appreciator and apologize for having to go so quickly – “Parents just don't wait for dinner when you've moved out of the house!”,) out of the crowd, off campus grounds, across the Sunnydale streets and (double-check if no one's following) into the cemetery, to the subterranean crypt, behind the heavy iron bars infixed in it...

The sun has well advanced in its descent by the time they pass the wrought-iron gates. He's clutched her hand like a lifeline all steps there, her own grasp not wavering even as he stops to lean against a cross gravestone, free hand gripping the weathered marble and chest heaving from which she knows is not the rush.

His face has drained of most of its color, she apprehensively observes as he picks up his head to look back up at her ('it's starting'), making it look even paler than before in the flecks of final sunlight shining through the low foliage enclosing the graveyard.

She kisses ('I'm not afraid') blue-pale lips like ink on cream, warm despite their color, and urges him on through the shadow of dusk.

***

 _Chang'e is a Chinese goddess of the moon,_ the story goes. _But unlike many lunar deities in other cultures who personify the moon, Chang'e only lives on it. After she had become a mortal as punishment, she drank the elixirs of immortality her husband Houyi had obtained to become eternal once more, and started to float into the sky. Houyi heard his wife's cry for help and tried to seize her, but she was already beyond his reach. Chang'e landed on the moon, and, immortal now, lives alone on it forever, with only a white rabbit to accompany her._

She watches his back arch off the dust right after the shadows reach their final length. 

The wall behind her – barely registering – is cold against her own, her knees pulled up to meet her nose and her hands forgotten over them. She doesn't want to watch, catches herself glancing away.

He rolls over to his stomach with a moan, and rounds his back upward, the action this time accompanied with an organic _crunch_. When it comes back down again it doesn't quite settle straight, but stays ridged and uneven and crude.

The heels of his hands are digging into the dirt, knees the same, fingers curled back in the forming of claws. The constrained pants and growls layer his voice, eyes screwn shut, and she doesn't know which is worse: this, or the breathless, hitching gasps that alternate them.

The eye of the storm: he rolls onto his shoulder, breathing labored and deep. Through the metal of the bars he searches her eyes with his now-black ones, a silent goodnight, and she sees the last of humanity leave them.

 

***

_In Slavic mythology, the Zorya are the three guardian goddesses, known as the Auroras. They guard and watch over the doomsday hound that threatens to eat the constellation Ursa Minor, 'little bear.' If the chain breaks loose and the constellation is devoured, the universe is said to end. In some myths, the morning Zorya is the wife of the male Myesyats, the moon god. In the morning she opens the heavenly gates for the chariot of the sun._

Her fingers trace the cold buttons on the framework's lock, and with half a mind Willow types in her own birthdate. The lock clanks open -- metal on metal -- after which a firm hand pushes open the gate. Letting herself in, she collects a ragged t-shirt from the corner of the cage: yellow, emblazoned with the name of a band she has not heard of before, and, turning it right-side-out, takes it to the heap of human lying in the corner. She kneels at the mattress's edge before stetching out her hand, her fingers tracing pale skin emblazoned with dark purple marks -- bruises from throwing himself against the bars all night, no doubt.

"Morning," she whispers against his back, which shifts as he rolls over, naked and beautiful in the morning's pale light.

"Morning," he smiles back, green eyes blazing, and she wonders how such a lithe body can hold so much rage. Where does it all go, the fur and nails and teeth, during the times between the full moon? It definitely isn't there when she leans over and kisses him, only letting her feel soft skin and a first hint of stubble.

"Breakfast?" she asks against his lips, and she feels him smile against her.

"In a little while."


End file.
